The corner of Harrison and Cairo streets in Coachella is a hot spot for pot.

On the north side of Cairo, there's Mien Tao Church of Health, Body and Mind. Its logo is four green leaves arranged in a pinwheel, their outline framing the familiar white cross that denotes medical marijuana clinics.

On the south side, there's Oklevueha Native American Church. Patrons rave online about its "absolutely epic" edibles and friendly 'budtenders.'

Both marijuana vendors maintain that they are not dispensaries, but houses of worship. Churches.

There's only one problem: It's illegal to sell pot in Coachella. For months, the city has been trying to run the self-identified churches out of town.

This summer, it took aim at Mien Tao in a lawsuit filed in Riverside Superior Court, saying the group is a dispensary operating “under the guise of a church."

The city's case has a simple logic. If it looks like a dispensary, smells like a dispensary and sells like a dispensary, it’s probably a dispensary. Not a church.

Coachella says it has smoking gun proof that Mien Tao is a business, down to the whiff of marijuana on the premises and grainy black-and-white photographs of patrons leaving withpaper bags in hand.

But city officials can't seem to stub out MTC Coachella, as Mien Tao sometimes abbreviates its name. It continues to operate.

Then, last month, Oklevueha set up shop on the opposite side of the street.It's only a matter of time before the city takes legal action against this outfit as well.

"These guys are trying to open up everywhere," said Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez. "Both of these facilities are illegal in the City of Coachella, and we're in the process of locking up these facilities."

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Coachella has had a temporary court order to stop MTC from distributing pot since August. Still, it remains open and continues to advertise marijuana products like vaping cartridges and edibles online. An attorney representing the city says the MTC defendants have been so elusive, she intends to seek arrest warrants to get them in court.

Employees at Mien Tao declined comment. The entity's CEO, Anthony Lee, referred questions to fellow co-defendant Scott Bates. Bates heads the Circle of Cannabis Churches, a coalition that says marijuana is a fundamental tenet of their religious practices. MTC is a member church.

Similarly, in court documents, MTC argues that it is the victim of religious discrimination. It says Coachella rebuffed its attempts to get a business license after the city learned that Mien Tao uses cannabis – in contrast to a Catholic church that has been allowed to proceed nearby.

“Coachella determined that it is alright for the Catholic church to provide alcohol without any state permits...for its sacrament – but that cannabis could not be a sacrament because it is not what city leaders believe should be sacred or part of religious beliefs,” Mien Tao said in reply to the city's lawsuit.

A 'church' with a waiting room

MTC and ONAC are located on a sparse commercial block, surrounded by small retailers like Tacos El Viejon and King's Furniture across Harrison Street.

MTC's Coachella home is a freestanding stucco building. It's painted white, with green trim lining the tile roof. There's minimal signage, just a banner on the door with its name and logo.

Patrons of Mien Tao Church enter through a windowless waiting room. A receptionist checks IDs and hands out membership waivers on clipboards. Uniformed security guards hover behind a desk. The space is decorated with posters of deities, among them the Hindu god Shiva smoking what looks like a blunt.

Only members are permitted to enter the back room, hidden behind a second door.

Its rival across the street has a more obvious advertising gimmick. On the corner outside of Oklevueha Native American Church, a man spins a giant arrow with the word 'CHURCH' printed in green typeface. His face is wrapped in a scarf. His eyes are hidden behind sunglasses.

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In a sworn statement in court, Alarcon says he did his first inspection of MTC on April 22, after the city received informationabout an unlawful dispensary on Harrison Street.

Almost immediately, MTC didn't pass the smell test.

"Along with signage for the business advertising the benefits of cannabis in the interior lobby area, there was a back room," Alarcon relates in his statement. "I observed patrons coming out of the back room with small brown paper bags. I
also detected the strong odor of marijuana coming from the back room."

Alarcon says MTC representatives, including its lawyer, Matthew Pappas, met with the city in May. But Pappas told Coachella that it wasn't illegal to distribute cannabis at a place of worship. MTC stayed open.

So Alarcon was back on the inspection circuit. He returned to MTC for two more days in May. The next month, he made six visits, snapping photographs of patrons coming and going through the window of his car. He did the same on Fourth of July weekend.

Once, Alarcon found a flier promoting marijuana specials on the ground in the parking lot. Another time, he took a picture of a sports car shaded by a tent with the logo for Rocca Roll pre-rolled joints.

The Harrison Street spot has also attracted the kind of attention any marijuana dispensary would envy.

Reviewers on the website Weedmaps, a Yelp-like service for rating marijuana dispensaries, call MTC a "clinic" and "dispensary," praising everything from its product selection, to its staff, to the speediness of its delivery service. Its rating stands at 4.9 out of 5 stars.

"These guys are trying to open up everywhere."

Bates with the Circle of Cannabis Churches said that if MTC resembles a dispensary, that's because dispensaries are the only model for distributing cannabis that people understand.

“The ministry of sacramental cannabis is not technically very different from the administration of medical cannabis," Bates said. "What’s different is the intent of the people.”

Unlike a dispensary, Bates said his intent isn't profit, but to use cannabis to assist church members "in their spiritual path and in knowing God."

To say that marijuana is a sacred substance is not a new claim.

The Oklevueha Native American Church, or ONAC, has made this case in Hawaii, Utah and California.

Other marijuana-friendly groups have found homes in traditional church buildings around the country. The First Church of Cannabis set up shop in Indianapolis two years. In Denver, a group opened the International Church of Cannabis in the former home of Mt. Cavalry Apostolic Church. It splashed psychedelic murals across the soaring ceiling of its chapels and put out ash trays where a Christian church might have placed basins of holy water.

MTC lawyer Matthew Pappas argues in court documents that MTC is a "bona fide religion with thousands of members."

Pappas has used that argument before. He previously represented Oklevueha churches in Orange and Sonoma counties, both times claiming a religious defense for the churches' distribution of cannabis products.

In the case of Oklevueha's Kenwood location in Sonoma County, Pappas filed a complaint against the county, arguing that it had violated church members' religious rights by seizing cannabis products from the Kenwood premises.

The suit was dismissed after Pappas, who is currently facing disciplinary charges by the State Bar Court of California, didn't show up to important hearings and generally failed to "live up to the minimum standards of professional responsibility," according to court documents.

In Costa Mesa, Pappas also told reporters that the seizure of cannabis products from a local Oklevueha location was an infringement of religious liberty. Pappas never filed a formal complaint.

Costa Mesa and Coachella have one thing in common: they do not allow dispensaries to operate within their jurisdiction. Sonoma County did not have a cannabis ordinance at the time ONAC set up shop there. Receiving permits would have been impossible.

That won't change when the state's adult-use marijuana law goes live on Jan. 1. Costa Mesa approved a measure earlier this year that loosens restrictions on some medical marijuana businesses, but still bans retail sales and dispensaries. Coachella's retail ban also remains unchanged. Sonoma County now allows cultivation and dispensaries in certain zones.

Bates, head of the Circle of Cannabis Churches, said churches choose their locations "when people see the need for sacramental cannabis ministries." And he believes even cities that allow cannabis dispensaries would have tried to shut down MTC.

She said MTC is well aware of the suit brought against them, but is still operating and making changes to the building despite a temporary restraining order.

"This is a blatant disregard of the court's orders," Wynder said.

But getting warrants will be difficult, since the city has not personally served some of the MTC defendants.

"They locked up their doors and they wouldn't allow us in," Mayor Hernandez said.

The city has already put months into its investigation. Inspections going back to April showed that MTC never had a conditional use permit. Then, MTC applied for a business license after opening, an unusual step for a church.

And now it will take even longer for due process to take its course, Hernandez said.

Because Coachella does not have its own police department, the city has to rely on the Riverside County Sheriff's Department to enforce injunctions like the one placed on Mien Tao.

Hernandez thinks delay is part of MTC's strategy. So the cat and mouse games continue.

"Due process in these instances is something that takes a lot of time, and that's something I can't do anything about," he said.